GSoC Status Update

[Marc Green]

Hi everyone,

I have been focusing on the finer details of getting Pod::Html released this week, and I was able to look into Pod::Checker a little bit too.

With the help of my mentors, essentially all of the test cases for Pod::Html pass (including the porting/ tests, which were more work than I expected due to a naming error on my part). I say "essentially" because one of them is still failing. However, we have determined it is not the fault of Pod::Html, but of Pod::Simple. Because of this, I am moving the test case over to Pod::Simple and will fix it before its next release. Before I can smoke (and release the module), however, a few final things must be finished. In particular,

- I need to complete the aforementioned move of the failing test case,
- I am going to ensure a usable version of pod2html is installed when perl is installed (via a perlbrew install of my perl branch), and
- The newest version of Module::Build needs to be released and merged into the core (this version includes updates for Pod::Html).

As for Pod::Checker, I am dismayed to conclude that using Pod::Simple::Checker will not suffice as a substitute; it is too featureless. Instead, I am thinking about subclassing Pod::Simple myself to create an identical (feature-wise) version of Pod::Checker. But again, this is only a thought that I need to research more into, so don't hold me to it.

Another issue that comes up with Pod::Checker is the fact that it is a subclass of Pod::Parser. My mentors and I are relieved that this is an implementation detail and is not documented, so it is free to be changed. Also, the fact that its home is under cpan/Pod-Parser/Pod will provide some trouble when removing Pod-Parser. rjbs said he will look into that.

For next week, I want to *finally* finish Pod::Html. What a momentous occasion that will be! In addition, I am going to continue my investigation of Pod::Checker.

Thanks,
Marc

[Marek Rouchal]

For the record: I won’t object at all if one of the next Perl core releases will not contain Pod-Parser any more. Like Sean Burke put it – time to give it a “Viking funeral” J However, Pod::Checker (including the podchecker script) should then be rewritten to use Pod::Simple, and I believe Pod::Usage is also an important module which needs to be refactored then; it is often used in conjunction with Getopt::Long…

 

Keep up the good work!

 

Cheers,

 

Marek

[Russ Allbery]

"Marek Rouchal" <marek....@gmx.net> writes:

> I believe Pod::Usage is also an important module which needs to be

> refactored then; it is often used in conjunction with Getopt::Long.

IIRC, supporting Pod::Usage in Pod::Text is blocked on some additional
functionality required in Pod::Simple. (There are some bugs open in RT.)

--
Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

[Marc Green]

Hello everyone,

For those of you who were let down by yesterday's lack of report from me, cheer up, because here it is ;). I'll keep it short though, so don't get too cheery.

What I have to say on Pod::Html:

- It has been smoked, and all test cases pass, woohoo!
- rjbs (and anyone else who would like to: https://github.com/marcgreen/perl/tree/gsoc-pod/ext/Pod-Html)
  is going to do a code review by next week to make sure the code is suitable for the core
- rjbs is going to ask xdg to make a release of module::build

On Pod::Checker:

- I am subclassing Pod::Simple to accomplish the port
- I think it should be a mostly simple port (thanks for sending me in the right direction, rafl)
- Keeping the interface is going to be mostly easy, Pod::Simple provides methods to easily accommodate for it

Sorry there is not much else to report. I have not really started writing code, so I am not going to elaborate until next week and I know what the future will look like.

Oh! But I do know what I plan to work on throughout the week. I am going to continue switching out Pod::Parser code for Pod::Simple code in Pod::Checker. More specifically: porting the methods listed under the Interface section of Pod::Checker.

Thanks,
Marc